The Secret History of Vince Noir
by Beechwood0708
Summary: Vince's life from a fouryearold French aristocrat to a ragamuffin on the streets.
1. Little French Duke

Disclaimer: All owned by Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Bryan Ferry presumably owns himself, but he's... not quite real, this guy.

The Secret History of Vince Noir

Marie stepped from the car and waved at the driver as he went to park. Her family hurried towards the theatre, worried that they might be too late to be fashionable, and late enough to not be let in.

Theatre wasn't really Marie's passion, it was her husband's, and for a joke, Marie had suggested why didn't they go and see Bryan Ferry in concert that night instead. But that would have outraged the children; they loved theatre even more than Claude did. Claude's brother and sister-in-law, Paul and Ronette, had brought their manic children Robert and Jeanne, who at aged twelve and ten both wanted to be famous actors and recited their favourite parts of whatever play they had just seen very loudly, over and over again on the ride home. But even they were no match for Marie's own son. Despite being only four years old, Vincent got so excited at the thought of seeing a play that saying he couldn't go provoked a tantrum most mothers only see in their worst nightmares. Somehow he managed to behave himself perfectly in the theatre, but once he got out he became so hyperactive, it really was best to let him swing from the lights, if his compulsion drove him to do so, until he was tired enough to go to bed.

Ironically, if Marie and her family had gone to see Bryan Ferry that night, Vincent would never have met him, and would have stayed and lived a comfortable life in wealthy Parisian society. As it was, when two gunmen stood up against the bourgeoisie they hated, Bryan, having been considering visiting the same theatre a few nights on when his Paris concerts had finished, was the first person to realise the little boy was still alive. Watching him, a tiny slip of a child in the scene of a massacre, he was compelled to take the boy, run away with him before the police arrived, and claim him and protect him as his own.

* * *

Vincent spent the evening in a large, plush room the likes of which he had never seen before. People rushed around everywhere, offering to give him things and trying to stop him crying when they wouldn't tell him why he was there and where his maman was. It had been terrible at first, because he hadn't understood the words these people were saying, but eventually someone had told him in real words but with a funny accent that he was safe, and he had had to come here because his parents couldn't be there at the moment. 

_But we were going to theatre together like always…_ he thought.

He spent the evening in silence, refusing to look at the funny word-speaking people, until the sound of music that Vincent hadn't heard the likes of before drifted into the room and into his head, and sent him drifting off to sleep.


	2. Jungle Boy

Here you go, ChuGirl- posted at 2:22 this morning. Told you I'd stay up till I finished. Enjoy, everyone.

Jungle Boy

Bryan ended his tour early. He felt that the child he had taken from the massacre would need a stable home as soon as possible, one out of the way where the strangeness of his situation wouldn't really become known to him. Bryan's forest retreat, though a flimsy house made of bus tickets, would be perfect for that.

The boy sat in indignant silence. Bryan had been told his name was Vincent Noir, and he was the youngest of an aristocratic family.

He was also an illegally adopted orphan who didn't speak the same language as his new benefactor. But Bryan would face that problem when it came to it.

Having finally arrived in the forest, Bryan carried the child to his home, sat him down on the bed and tried to explain to him what was going on, but his exaggerated gestures and mimes got him nowhere with the boy, who responded with frightened and angry French gibberish. In the end Bryan settled for hugging the child, because there was no other way he could think of to make himself understood.

He shuddered as he felt a smooth coil wind round his arm. Kalooni, the sneaky, two-faced cobra that Bryan made a habit of avoiding, slithered across him and wrapped himself around Vincent. Bryan tried to stop him, but held back as he realised Kalooni was speaking fluent French. He listened to the conversation, not getting a word of it, and eventually Kalooni slithered back to him.

"What did you say?" Bryan asked.

"What you were trying to," replied Kalooni. "That he's safe, you're his new guardian, and you need him to learn English."

"Nothing else?" asked Bryan.

"Nothing else," Kalooni confirmed.

Bryan looked at the bewildered child.

"I want you to stay away from him, you know," he said to Kalooni.

"Understandable, knowing you," quipped the snake. "Still, if you ever change your mind, need a translator, you know where I'll be."

"Of course," said Bryan, silently vowing never to call on the snake's translation services as long as Vincent was still in his care.

* * *

The next day Bryan showed Vincent the forest. He was afraid at first, and wanted to be held, but Bryan made him walk. He had never seen a four-year-old so dependant on the touch of others. 

Once he got over his initial apprehension, Vincent started to enjoy himself. Bryan was surprised at how adept the sheltered French duke was at climbing trees once he put his mind to it.

He introduced him to his forest community of misfit animals, who escaped from zoos, homes, slaughterhouses and the like, and again it took Vincent a while to discover his confidence, but once he found it he used it to the full, and Bryan suspected the majority of his animal friends thought Vincent was a bossy, precocious little brat. Which he was, to be fair, but he was a damn well cute one.

As Colto the deaf horse, who used to be shot out of a cannon at the circus, trotted around with the laughing tot on his back, Bryan noticed another less welcome figure striding towards them.

"Jahooli," Bryan acknowledged, looking at the leopard with a little apprehension.

"Bryan," smiled Jahooli. He looked at Vincent, utterly at ease on Colto's back, and smiled wider. "Is this the child?"

"No, that's my mother," replied Bryan.

Jahooli arched himself. "I'd like to see him," he growled.

Bryan didn't know why he mistrusted Jahooli. He had never offended Bryan, or caused any trouble at all, yet for some reason he couldn't help thinking of Jahooli with a sense of dread. It wasn't like Kalooni. Everyone knew Kalooni was cheating scum.

Bryan sighed. "Alright," he said. "Colto!" he called, waving his arms madly, and Colto ran over to him, and allowed Bryan to pick Vincent up off his back and put him on the floor before Jahooli.

And of course, right when Bryan would have liked Vincent to be a little afraid, the cocky tot walked right up to Jahooli, no fear whatsoever, pushed him and said "salut".

"Salut, mon chere," replied Jahooli. He turned to Bryan. "He only speaks French?"

"Of course, you nut job, he's four years old," answered Bryan.

"Damn," muttered Jahooli.

To give him his credit, Jahooli made no attempt to even pretend to harm or steal the boy. He played with the boisterous child until Vincent became too tired, and asked, through the medium of jumping, pointing and shouting, to be carried up to the top of a tree, a request which Bryan firmly denied.

Despite his begging French protestations, Bryan carried Vincent home.

* * *

Vincent picked up English surprisingly quickly, and by the time he was six he had stopped interjecting French words when he couldn't think of the right English one. To Bryan's immense relief, he never asked what became of his family. He knew Bryan wasn't his father, but it never seemed to occur to him to find out where his father was. In fact, after a few years, Vince, as he had requested to be called, seemed to have forgotten his infancy in the snob quarter of Paris entirely. 

He was an extraordinarily energetic boy, and at times annoyingly clumsy. If Bryan took him to a river, rest assured he would fall in. Several times on most occasions. If Bryan showed him how to make a trap to slow down unwanted foes, it was a cert that Vince would get caught in it himself. Many a time Bryan, too blasé to bother freeing his charge, carried Vince back home tied to a pole or in a net. Vince seemed to enjoy it, but then when he wasn't hyperactive, he could also be a very lazy boy.

Still, Bryan couldn't complain. Vince listened to him, most of the time, and generally tried his best to please, and spankings were hardly a regular occasion. Vince respected him, and in return Bryan respected his young friend.

The one thing that disturbed him, however, was a growing fascination with Jahooli. Bryan knew Jahooli was dangerous; he was a killer, but the more he warned Vince of him, the more attracted Vince became. Bryan tried his best, but he knew physically keeping Vince from Jahooli could cause his reckless charge to do something stupid.

Like the time Bryan had tried to prevent Vince from getting to close to the quicksand, and the idiot had slipped away and tried to swim to the other side.

Bryan had learned since then that forcing Vince to do things never ended well. So all Bryan could really do was warn the boy of Jahooli, safe in the knowledge that given the respect he enjoyed, Vince would do as he was asked.

Vince looked up at Bran with his big blue angel-eyes, and Bryan hoped he wasn't half as devious as he could be.

* * *

For all the time he lived with Bryan, Vince kept to his word and never tried to sneak of with Jahooli for reckless fun. This made it particularly embarrassing for Bryan when, as he prepared for his latest tour, he realised all his usual childminders were otherwise engaged. Karpax the platypus had a tennis injury and wouldn't be able to keep up with a manic nine-year-old, Lubiro the goat had his ex-wife over, and Colto was going away with the Happy Hooves Club. 

Jahooli was the only animal in the forest that physically could look after Vince.

"Vince," Bryan said to the boy with a slightly pink face. "When I go away, I'll be leaving you with Jahooli."

"Yes!" cried Vince, jumping up and grinning. Not a particularly encouraging reaction, as far as Bryan was concerned.

"Now Vince-"

"I knew you'd see sense."

"I'm not seeing sense, I'm seeing necessity," countered Bryan. "Vince, listen to me; I don't want you doing anything with Jahooli that you wouldn't do with me. I know he does some things that I am opposed to, and I do not want to hear that you've joined in with them. So, when I get back, I want a blow-by-blow account of the whole time, and I will know if you're missing anything, do you hear me."

"Yeah, yeah, I won't," said Vince, looking up with his sweet eyes. The boy could have you under his thumb with one glance. It was a good thing Bryan knew him too well to let him.

Bryan took Vince to Jahooli's current home that evening, him anxious, Vince ecstatic.

"Keep him out of trouble," Bryan warned Jahooli, a little more sternly than he needed to, Vince thought.

He gave Vince a hug and kissed his head. "Be sensible," he warned before he left. As he left the forest and entered the forbidding realm of civilisation, Bryan realised that he really should have found another word.

* * *

The first words Jahooli had said to Vince once Bryan had left were "Thank God he's gone," and Vince had laughed out loud. To give him his credit, Jahooli did seem to be trying to treat Vince as Bryan would have wanted him to. For the first week or so, they had only done things that Vince did with Bryan; they had climbed trees, gone skateboarding down valleys, and gone out in the middle of the night to make strange noises and annoy the parakeets. No one seemed to like parakeets. 

After a while, Jahooli started encouraging Vince to do things Bryan had warned him about, like allowing him to swim in the rapids near the bears' den. "Well, he never forbade you to do it, did he," Jahooli had reasoned. So they had gone swimming. And Vince loved it. The rapids sent him flying in every direction, and a few times he went under, but he always managed to come back up. Vince couldn't really understand what Bryan had been so worried about.

A few days later, Jahooli took him to spy on the rabbits, which Bryan had never really mentioned before. This confused Vince a bit, but Jahooli seemed to enjoy it, so it must have been good.

And then, after a month or so had passed, Jahooli showed Vince a strange object.

"What is it?" Vince asked, eyeing up the smooth silver and tiny appendages greedily.

"It's a laser," answered Jahooli. "Want to see what it does?"

"Yeah," cried Vince, a huge grin lighting up his face.

"I'll show you," smiled Jahooli, his many sharp teeth glinting.

He led Vince silently through the undergrowth. Vince, quiet like he may very well have never been before, could hear nothing besides his own heartbeat. He liked being secretive and sneaking up on people. He just wasn't very good at it because he liked singing a lot.

"There," whispered Jahooli, indicating a solitary gazelle whom Vince didn't recognise, standing still, eating some grass and pondering. "Watch this," murmured Jahooli, teeth glinting again.

He pointed his laser at the gazelle, pressed something, and then a thin red beam, like one that Vince had seen in a picture of Bryan on stage, came out from the end of it. The gazelle dropped to the floor without a sound.

Vince was confused. "What did you just do?" he asked.

"Come and see," replied Jahooli, in a loud voice that startled Vince after all the quiet. He emerged from the undergrowth, making no effort to conceal himself. Vince followed nervously, and watched Jahooli prod the gazelle with his claw.

Vince pushed her with his hands. She made no reaction. "Is she dead?" he asked.

"Of course," said Jahooli.

Vince was horrified. "You mean you… you _killed_ her?"

"Yes," Jahooli replied offhandedly, slicing a gash into the gazelles torso with one claw. "Come here; try this."

He buried his face into the cut and pulled it out with gore streaming down is face.

Vince thought he was going to be sick.

"Come on, it's good, honestly," Jahooli coaxed, smiling, the glint on his teeth now dulled by the scarlet stain. He pushed in a paw and removed a handful of meat and passed it to Vince. Vince could only stare at it in horror as blood ran down his hand.

"Try it," encouraged Jahooli, digging his own face straight into the gazelle's body. "You know you want to."

The words seemed to have a hypnotic effect on Vince. He knew this was wrong, but… it was _bad_, and it felt _good_.

He brought the hunk of meat up to his mouth and took a small nibble. He didn't vomit. He thought he actually might like it. He took a bigger bite. It did taste good. He found himself wolfing down more and more, till all that was left in his hands was a bloody stain.

He shouldn't have done that. It was wrong, really wrong. Everyone deserved to live. But it was fun. He had enjoyed it. That must be the wrongest thing about it. But wasn't fun supposed to mean something was good. He enjoyed swimming and climbing, and throwing stones at armadillos, and they were all good. So, by logic, was this good too? It tasted good. It had felt good. It had felt wrong, but good. It didn't make sense.

So Vince decided to trust Jahooli, and joined him I plunging his face into the warm carcass.

* * *

They had managed to eat the whole gazelle. Jahooli had eaten most of her, but Vince still had a lingering sensation of guilt. He decided not to bring it up with Jahooli, though. Jahooli wouldn't understand. But he definitely wouldn't tell Bryan about it when he got back. He had a feeling Bryan would be angry. 

Vince felt tired. He needed a little sleepy. So, apparently, did Jahooli. They climbed a tree together, not bothering to go past the lower branches, and Vince closed his eyes, soothed by the regular rising of Jahooli's belly.

"Oh, you should never sleep," said a smooth, whispering voice.

Vince opened his eyes to see Kalooni, the devious, wily snake Bryan had often warned him about. One of the few things where the warning had been so full of hatred, Vince really hadn't wanted to find him anyway.

"Why, Kalooni, what are you on about?" Vince asked, groggily yet still warily.

"Because the monkey-folk want to steal your face," answered Kalooni, flicking his tongue. Vince thought he might have smiled, but he wasn't sure.

"What do you mean?" Vince asked, his hands protectively touching face.

Kalooni slithered closer, resting himself on Vince's calves. "I've heard the leader of the monkey-folk talking of you," he explained. "He thinks you're a very pretty boy." Vince didn't like the way the cobra was looking at him. "He needs a man's face to be a proper king. He likes Columbo's, but he failed in his attempt to take it. It's attached too tightly to the rest of him. So he wants yours instead."

"What are you saying?" Vince demanded.

"I'm saying be careful!" hissed the cobra venomously. "Don't fall asleep, or they will come for you when you're at your most vulnerable. Be alert."

With that, the snake slithered off up the tree.

The monkeys were coming? The monkeys never came. They hated Bryan and all his friends. Kalooni must be making it up. That's what Kalooni did. But maybe he should listen to him, just in case. Because if Kalooni was trying to hurt Vince, why would he be telling him to be alert?

But the sun was so bright, he was so full, his eyes were so _heavy_…

* * *

Vince awoke to a violent lurching. He could feel the meat turning in his stomach. His arms and legs hurt. They were being pulled. He was being carried. 

Monkeys. Kalooni had been right. The monkeys had come for him.

They hurled him through the forest, past strange things he'd never seen before, ignoring his screams.

They threw him down on the floor of some old temple, the existence of which Vince hadn't been aware of.

"Don't leave him there; tie him down!" ordered a raspy, commanding voice.

Vince was yanked to his feet, where he just caught a glimpse of a monkey in a crown before he was dragged away.

One of the monkeys brought out rough ropes, and four of them, one on each limb, tied him to some weird piece of architecture, so that his arms and legs were all splayed out.

The monkey in the crown stood over him and leered.

"Prepare the knives."

* * *

Bryan cancelled a fair amount of his tour immediately after Sakawa the albino eagle had contacted him. He had been instructed to return to the forest as quickly as possible and meet Jahooli and Kalooni on the edge of his part of the forest. Vince was in danger. 

He was there within the day, Kalooni looking furious, and Jahooli looking guilty, a look Bryan had never seen on him before.

"The monkeys have him, Bryan," explained Kalooni. "I warned the child, but he fell asleep."

Bryan said nothing. They set off in determined silence through the uncharted depths of the forest; the dangerous, renegade monkey territory.

The monkeys had made their home in on of the forest's last dwellings of men. It was a ruined temple, long since abandoned by anyone else. It seemed oddly empty.

Vince was guarded, tied to a sacrificial altar with several monkey guards around him. Kalooni slithered his way in, silently creeping up on two of them and launching deadly, silent bites on them both, before knocking them aside with his body. They lay still. Jahooli took another with his strange laser device. The monkey's companion ran for him, crudely made steak knife in hand. But the laser got him before he had gone two metres. A fifth and final monkey was near the exit. He turned and ran for his life. Jahooli let him go, until he reached the exit, when Jahooli shot him in the back.

"Was all this necessary?" Bryan asked, crossing to where Vince was tied up.

"Of course it was," replied Jahooli with self-assured ease.

"I felt it so," said Kalooni, climbing the wall and coiling himself around the branch of a nearby tree. "But you can call me an amoral backstabber if you like."

A moment later he was gone.

Jahooli cut the bonds holding Vince to the altar. The boy ran forwards and wrapped his arms around Bryan. Bryan returned the embrace, then picked Vince up and held him over his shoulder.

In silence, the three came home. Bryan opened the door to his house. "Goodbye Jahooli," was all he said before he closed it.

Bryan sat Vince down on his bed.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

Vince nodded.

"I've heard you've had quite a time while I was away."

Vince nodded again.

"How were the rapids?"

Vince began to blush. "They were… alright," he answered.

"And the rabbits?"

"I didn't get that one."

"Good," said Bryan, smiling in relief. Then his face set. "The gazelle?"

Vince gasped. "I… I…"

"You do realise that you will never be seeing that leopard again."

"I… I'm sorry," the boy said, his voice starting to crack.

Bryan looked at him. "I know you are. Jahooli said you looked it. I just want you to think how Edith's family will be taking this."

"I don't need this right now." Vince's face was set and angry.

"I think you do," countered Bryan. "No one is beyond basic compassion."

"You sound like you are," argued Vince. "I could do with some of that compassion right now."

"You could do with something else as well," warned Bryan.

"Can I go to bed now?" asked Vince, already turned towards it.

"I only want you to consider them-"

"For God's sake…"

Vince's comment hung in the air.

"Come here," ordered Bryan.

Vince spun round. "What? No," he protested.

"Come here now, young man," Bryan repeated.

Vince turned away. Bryan grabbed him by the arm and pulled him towards his own bed. Vince struggled and broke away, moving wherever Bryan wasn't. Bryan pursued him, over random objects and around corners until he finally caught the boy, and had him bent over under his arm.

He only hit him a few times, but when he let the boy go he was crying.

Vince stalked away and threw himself into bed, wincing as he shifted position.

Bryan followed and fell onto his own bed. In silence they fell asleep.

* * *

Vince woke up in the black of night. His bum was still sore. He had never known Bryan be so unreasonable. It wasn't that he wasn't sorry; he was just tired. He had had every intention of apologising in the morning, with a gift and everything, and offering his services in whatever he could do in apology. He wasn't so sure now. He had never seen Bryan act like he didn't like him. Like he didn't want him. He'd thought Bryan would be glad to have him back safely. 

What of Bryan didn't want him? What if he'd disappointed him so much that he didn't want him any more? He knew he wasn't perfect, but surely that couldn't be true.

It made sense.

Maybe he should give Bryan what he wanted. Maybe he should leave.

Wiping a tear from his eye, he got up and went to the front door. This felt strange. Definitive. He wouldn't be coming home.

"Vince?"

Bryan stood behind him, a stern look on his face.

"Where are you going?"

"I, er…"

"Were you leaving?"

"No…"

"Don't lie!" Bryan had never snapped at Vince like that before. Now Vince was scared. "Do you honestly think you could survive out there on your own? Look at what happened today. Get back into bed right now."

acting purely on impulse, Vince reached for the door.

Before he knew what was going on, Bryan's hand was on his shoulder and he was being steered back into the bedroom. With a painful jab he was bent over his bed, and he looked over to see Bryan leaning out of the window pulling a stick off a tree.

Oh shit.

Bryan held Vince down, stick in the air. Once again, Vince's heartbeat pounded in his ears.

_Boom, boom, boom, boom._

He became aware of Bryan's hand moving over his chest. It came to rest over his heart, as Bryan felt the erratic pulse.

"Consider that your warning," he said, turning away and throwing the stick out of the window.

Bryan fell back into bed. Vince nervously did likewise.

Heart still thumping, he fell into a restless sleep.

* * *

When he woke up again, the dawn light was just about appearing. The nocturnal animals would be going to bed, and the others wouldn't be up yet. No one would know if he slipped away, unless Bryan was awake. 

But Vince would be careful this time. He hummed a few notes. Bryan didn't move. He hummed louder. Still nothing. He added words, whatever came into his head. Bryan was dead to the world.

As quiet as he could, though, it didn't seem to matter, Vince left the house made of bus tickets, and passed silently through the forest to his new home.

It was a place Bryan feared and mistrusted, but to Vince that meant it might be fun.

"Civilisation."


	3. Street Kid

Heyhey, my sincerest apologies for how long this took. I was getting kinda worried this chapter was a bit slow and boring, but I'll leave y'all to be the judge of that.

Also injected into this chappie; some random S3 canon reference. Possibly to make up for the fact that the sequel to this, which will come eventually, will ignore certain aspects of this canon in a pretty big way.

But enough of me- have a cup of tea and enjoy at your leisure. xx

Street Kid

After a day or so of continuous walking, Vince came to a city. The city was called Leeds, and Vince thought it looked as good as any other place. He wandered the streets for a while, mildly amused by the local accent, before he found an empty building full of large rooms he could stay in. He didn't have anything with him besides the clothes he was wearing, so he found what he could. He pulled leaves from trees to use as insulation, and learned where he could find discarded items that weren't being watched.

He got by very well. He was safe, though he knew to keep himself to himself, he was warm and dry at night, he could get food…

He had it good.

He had also discovered the novelty of television. He found them in gadget shop windows, loads of them all showing the same thing at once. He wondered why so many screens were needed to show one show. Maybe only one person was supposed to look at a screen at once or something.

One day, he noticed the date in the corner. May the twelfth.

The realisation shocked him, and brought tears to his eyes. He thought back to last year, when Bryan had woken him up early, and he'd been really peed off at first, then he'd remembered what day it was and jumped out of bed and given Bryan a big hug, and Bryan had been so nice to him all day.

What would Bryan be doing now? Did he wonder where Vince was?

Tears began to flow down Vince's face. He really missed Bryan.

"You alright?" asked a voice behind him.

Vince wiped the tears from his eyes and looked behind him. A boy was standing there, a tall boy, older than Vince, or so he assumed.

Vince nodded, sniffling.

A look of awkward concern played on the other boy's face. "What's up?" he asked, sounding slightly nervous.

Vince sobbed a little before he was able to answer. "It's my birthday."

"Happy birthday," said the other boy, sounding positively baffled.

Vince just buried his head in his knees and kept on crying. He felt the other boy come over and sit next to him. He could feel the anxiousness, as the other boy's arms came closer and further away, unsure whether or not it would be appropriate to touch him.

"Is it… because no one's making a big deal out of it?" the boy asked. "Because that happens, eventually."

Vince kept on sniffling.

"How old are you?" the boy asked.

"Ten," Vince replied.

He heard the other boy's sympathetic intake of breath. "Oh, that's harsh," he said. "Your tenth's supposed to be your last good birthday till you're sixteen."

Vince looked up at the other boy, but the other boy wasn't looking at him. He was looking up, with a faraway look in his eyes and a smile on his face. "My tenth was in September. I had a huge party. Went to Laser Quest."

Vince shuddered. The other boy returned his gaze to him.

"Sorry," the boy said. He looked at Vince for a while. Vince was no longer crying, but he was still slumped and sad. "Do you wanna get an ice cream or something?"

Vince gave him a small smile. "Yeah, alright."

The other boy, who introduced himself as Howard Moon, offered to pay for Vince to have whatever he wanted. Vince naturally took him up on the offer, because he had no money of his own and had been stealing for the last few weeks. But he didn't ask for anything particularly expensive, as he didn't want to take advantage of the first friendly face he'd seen in far too long.

"Are you new here?" Howard asked him.

"Yeah," replied Vince. "I got here about three weeks ago."

"Where you from?"

"I used to live in the forest," Vince answered. "With Bryan Ferry."

"No way," said Howard. He stared at Vince expectantly for a while, expecting a different answer, but when none came he laughed and said "whatever," allowing himself to go along with it as long as it didn't prove unwise. "When are you starting school?"

School? Vince hadn't thought about it. Bryan had never expressed any wish to have him educated, but then Bryan had probably expected him to stay in the forest all his life. He hadn't planned to start at all. But would he have to now that he knew someone?

"Er, I wasn't going to," he said. The honest approach, because it made him feel closer to people.

"Really? Why not?" A look of comprehension suddenly came over him. "Oh," he said. "Are you one of those people that live in caravans?"

"In what?"

"Caravans," repeated Howard. Vince gave him a blank look. "You know, caravans. Like houses with wheels. You attach them to cars."

"Like a tour bus?" Vince asked.

"Sort of," said Howard. Vince could see that Howard thought he was a bit weird.

"No, I never lived in one of them," answered Vince. "Bryan did sometimes though."

"Okay…" said Howard. "But you should come to school next year. It's not that bad. Get your parents, or that Bryan guy, to put you down for it."

Vince looked down. He could feel the tears returning at the mention of Bryan's name.

"You alright?" Howard asked, a nervous break appearing in his voice.

"Yeah," replied Vince, choking slightly. "Sorry." He smiled.

"What's up?"

Vince wondered if he should tell him. He seemed nice, and he had tried to cheer Vince up, and bought him ice cream, and he was the first person Vince had had a proper conversation with in three weeks. He wanted to trust him. He needed to trust someone. He had been honest about school. Could he be honest about this?

He looked up into Howard's concerned eyes, studying them for a few torn moments.

"Can you keep a secret?" he asked.

* * *

Howard looked around the huge, sparse room. So this was what life was like for a runaway. He wasn't sure what he had expected. He knew the Artful Dodger was a glossed-over sensationalisation, and he had always thought that the streets at night couldn't possibly be as full of hidden dangers as his parents and people at school kept telling him, but he hadn't really expected street life to be like this. It was so… mundane. Vince had made his own home for himself and figured out how to live as normally as possible. He made it look so natural.

But then, Howard had to admit, Vince didn't seem like other kids. He doubted that anyone else could have handled living alone so well. He didn't think he would.

Howard grinned. It might be mundane, and it might be dirty, and it might be a few used blankets in the corner of a room in an abandoned factory unit, but it was so exciting!

He made Vince tell him everything, not wanting any detail spared. He liked watching Vince's face light up, seeing the different emotions playing across his features. He threw his whole body into telling a story.

Howard could have listened to him all day. If he didn't have to be home by half past five. Cursing his overprotective mother, he apologised to Vince and said he had to leave.

"Oh, okay," said Vince, looking a little downcast.

Howard couldn't help feeling sorry for him. Besides which, he really quite liked him. Smiling, he pulled Vince a little closer to him and whispered in his ear "Meet me by the shops at seven."

Then he walked away, waving at his new friend.

* * *

Vince turned up as asked, a little early because of the nerves.

Seven o' clock came and went.

Five past.

Ten past.

Was he not coming? Didn't he mean it earlier? Had it just been a cruel joke?

He'd seemed so nice.

Running footsteps thumped on the pavement. "Sorry!" he heard Howard call. He grinned to see the flushed boy running round the corner. "My Mum," he explained, slightly out of breath. "Making sure I go straight there and straight back, and I'm back by half eight… You're so lucky not to have one."

In truth, Vince was missing having someone who worried about him and cared for him. But he decided not to say anything.

"Anyway," Howard continued, pushing a small box into his hands. "Happy birthday."

Vince opened the box, and a huge grin spread over his face. Howard had bought him cake. "Thank you!" he said, smiling.

Howard had gone pink and looked awkward. Vince threw his arms around him, which if anything made him more awkward.

"Er, no problem," mumbled Howard. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" asked Vince.

"Surprise," replied Howard, leading him away.

Howard led him down various streets, with Vince persistently asking for hints as to where they were going. But Howard refused to tell.

"Not till we get there," he kept giggling.

He kept Vince guessing all the way, and when Vince got there he still didn't know where he was.

"It's a bowling alley," Howard told him, before he even opened his mouth.

Bryan had told him about bowling. He had gone once with Brian Eno when he was on tour, but Brian Eno had been thrown out for repeatedly bowling so slowly that the ball stopped halfway down the lane and the staff had to keep going to get them back.

Vince soon discovered he was absolutely terrible. He could see Howard going easy on him, but he still ended two games with less than half Howard's score. On the way out, he jokingly tried to push Howard down the stairs. "You're only supposed to do that to old ladies," Howard giggled.

Vince was slightly confused. Maybe this was one of those strange customs of civilisation Bryan was always going on about.

He didn't miss Bryan any more. Well, he did, but not really. He didn't know if that was wrong or not, but in a way that didn't matter any more because there was no one there to punish him for it, and in any case it didn't feel so bad to him. He had had fun on his birthday without Bryan's presence, and all things considered, that must mean his life in civilisation was going well.

"Oh crap, it's half eight, my Mum's gonna kill me!" Howard suddenly yelped. Shouting a quick goodbye, he ran off round a corner. "I still think you're lucky," he added, popping his head round, then leaving again.

Vince smiled. He set off back towards his room in the factory, realising that he really was the luckiest person in the world.

* * *

Howard leant on the side of the phonebox, his face twisted with effort to stop himself laughing at Vince's high-pitched impersonation of his imaginary mother.

"_Yes… yes… thank you…_"

Suddenly Vince's own strained grin contorted into a look of panic. "They want me to go and sign some forms," he mouthed.

"Tell them your son will collect them and bring them back," Howard whispered.

"_Erm… I'm quite busy sorting things out,_" Vince said in his high woman's voice. "_I'll get my son to pick them up from you and bring them back when they're signed._" He mouthed his thanks to Howard. "_Okay, good, thank you, bye._" He hung up the phone.

The two burst out laughing simultaneously, and didn't stop most of the way to the LEA office.

"Don't laugh at me," Vince said outside.

"I won't," replied Howard, his face cracking already.

"You will. Don't," pouted Vince.

He went inside and strode up to the reception desk, and prepared to use a technique that Bryan had called "turning on the charm" or "brainwashing", depending on what mood he was in at the time. It was a simple technique which he'd perfected with the help of most of the animals in Bryan Ferry's forest, none of whom had ever been able to resist it for long. Not even that iguana that went blind.

He just widened his eyes, gave a big grin and brazenly asked for what he wanted. Worked every time.

When he came out, Howard stared at him with his mouth open. Vince flashed him his magic smile and grabbed him by the wrist. "Come on," he laughed.

* * *

Howard gave Vince a lesson in forging signatures ("Make sure you've got them written down or you'll forget what they look like, and that'll cause all kinds of problems,"), the forms were returned with the same big sweet smile, and five weeks later, Vince was ready to start school.

Howard waited for him on the first day by the school gates. Vince looked quite excited, but the grin on his face wavered slightly when he saw the sad, worried look that must have been quite evident on Howard's face.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Maybe you shouldn't have bothered with school," Howard replied, guilt making his voice quiet.

"What? Why?"

Howard pointed over across the playground to a tall man in a suit. "Mr Hughes," he said. "Nightmare."

Vince regarded him. "Is he our teacher?" he asked.

Howard nodded.

Vince scrutinised him some more. "He can't be all that bad," Vince assessed. "He doesn't look bad, and if you care about your appearance then you probably care about other things too."

Howard just shook his head. He'd had an incident with this particular teacher once, in Year Four, when Howard had been suspended by one arm from a drainpipe, only a few feet off the ground, completely able to get down and only there in the spirit of helping some younger, much smaller kids, but this tyrant had still insisted on telling his parents about it, and his parents hadn't been happy. Vince really was lucky to have no parents to tell, he decided.

"You two, over here please," the tall, imposing figure snapped, indicating the line the rest of their class had formed. They hurried over, Howard stumbling nervously and Vince in a light jog.

"Morning," Vince said brightly.

The teacher didn't reply. He looked Vince up and down with a critical glare. "Young man, where is the school logo on your blazer?"

Vince answered with no hesitation and no sense of fear. Howard felt it his duty to grimace for him.

"Oh, I'm not very good at embroidery, but I'm getting better. Would you believe it only took me three tries to make the blazer?"

Howard gaped at Vince's uniform. True, he had thought the colours looked a little bit brighter than everyone else's, but he had put it down to the light. The idea that Vince could have made the whole thing himself… no way. How could he be that good at it?

Mr Hughes was also eyeing Vince with a glower Vince seemed to be oblivious to. "May I remind you," he seethed, "that all uniform is to be purchased from the official supplier."

Vince looked up at him, a slight flicker of apprehension just starting to play across is features. "But I- we don't have the money for it."

The teacher stalked off down the line, and Howard thought he noticed his unpleasant mind-cogs working.

* * *

Vince picked up school life quickly. He just about got by in most subjects, though he struggled in Maths and excelled in Art. He was even getting popular, not just with Howard's friends but with everyone else as well. Sometimes he thought Howard might be getting slightly jealous of him. He just hoped that his constant hugging was enough to reassure Howard that he was still his best friend.

There had been a slight disaster on Howard's eleventh birthday, which had ended in Vince running through the backstreets and spending several hours hiding from a man who had claimed to have a bouncy castle for hire in exchange for discarded manhole covers, which to add insult to injury, meant that Vince had completely wasted the previous two weeks he had spent stealing the manhole covers from the drains in the first place. Apparently the result had been terrible for both of them, but if Vince was any judge of character then something big and chocolate-covered from the lady with all the cats who lived near the bus shelter a few streets away from him would hopefully make up for it.

And it did. Eventually.

Vince would really have loved to finish that year at school. He would have loved to have spent the summer holidays with Howard, and then gone on to high school with him. But it wasn't to be.

Some time at the beginning of April, a note was delivered to the classroom.

"Vince," Mr Hughes announced. "Someone in the office wants to see you."

He gave a questioning glance in Howard's direction. Howard shrugged.

Vince got up and made his way to the office. He wasn't in trouble was he? He didn't see how he could be. He hadn't done anything. How could he get into trouble for something he didn't remember doing? It wasn't like the incident with the chilli chocolate. Unless someone had found out that when that surge of bets as to which teachers would go menopausal first had been going round, it had been him and Howard setting the odds. But then it wasn't like those odds weren't just made-up numbers anyway. Vince didn't even know what "menopausal" actually meant.

"Vince Noir?" the receptionist said, smiling. "In there."

She led him to a meeting room. She didn't sound angry, far from it, but he had never been called into a meeting room before. There were two people in there, a man and a woman in suits, smiling and trying to look friendly.

"Hello, Vince," said the woman, shaking his hand.

He took it, and then did the same to the man.

"Don't be nervous, we just want to have a little talk with you about how things are at home," the woman continued. "Just to make sure that everything's alright."

"It is," said Vince, perhaps a little too quickly. He noticed them exchange a quick look.

"Sit down," said the woman. "Now, we've noticed something a little bit odd about the address your parents gave us. You see, according to the records, that house is owned by a Mr and Mrs George Periwinkle."

"Yeah, we're the lodgers," answered Vince.

"I see," said the woman, looking a tiny bit irate, though she was doing a pretty good job of trying to hide it. "So if I was to call that house right now, I could ask to speak to Juanita or Nikolai Noir right now?"

"Not right now; they're at work."

"And what do your parents do?" the woman asked.

"Mum's a photographer and Dad's a travel agent."

He was starting to relax now. This should be easy. He and Howard had spent ages coming up with his parents' backstories. It had been Howard who had convinced him to give his parents normal jobs instead of being a supermodel and a stuntman like Vince had wanted, but Vince had insisted on the names, which were his two favourites, and the fact that both his parents had been eighteen when he was born, because that was cool.

"Where were you living before you moved here?" the woman asked.

"We travelled a lot," Vince replied. "We spent a year in Mexico, then before that there were a few months in Iceland, and Norway-"

"Vince," the woman interrupted. "It really is astonishing how much effort you've put into this story, but we have reason to believe you're actually homeless and living alone. Is this true?"

"No," Vince replied with all the conviction of a man on trial.

The woman sighed. "Vince, you're obviously a very clever boy, and we just want you to have all the best opportunities. Someone will meet you after school and take you somewhere we can help you. That's what we want to do; we want to help you."

She had put her hand on Vince's shoulder. Vince did his best to smile through the tears welling up in his eyes. "Okay."

* * *

He told Howard about his interview at break time, as soon as they could get away from everyone else. Howard was horrified. It didn't matter what social services or whoever they were could offer Vince; it would take away the essence that was Vince. He was the street kid who knew odd shady dealers and made his own clothes. It was just who Vince was.

"You'll have to go somewhere they'll never find you," Howard told him. "Like… London or something."

"London?" he asked. So far? What about his friends? What about Howard?

"Yeah. Tell you what," Howard whispered. "We'll sneak out at lunchtime, and you can get a train to London."

* * *

Vince couldn't concentrate in his next lesson. He was shaking so badly he could barely hold the pen, and did next to no work. But it didn't matter. Because he wouldn't be there tomorrow.

He and Howard managed to sneak through the school gates while no one was looking. They took a detour to Howard's house, where thankfully no one was in, and Howard took some money from a cabinet, and he confided in Vince that he hoped his mum didn't notice for a few weeks at least.

After that, they made their way to the train station. Howard bought the ticket, as he looked somewhat older than he was, and he thought people might be a little less suspicious. Half an hour later they were on the platform, the doors to the train open.

"Come with me," Vince begged.

"I can't," Howard replied. "My parents…"

And then he realised just how important his parents were to him, and how much Vince was really missing.

"All passengers now board please," a tinny voice announced from a tannoy.

Vince wrapped his arms around Howard, finally letting himself cry, and he looked up and realised Howard was doing the same. Tears streaming, he pulled away and boarded the train. As it moved away, he pressed his cheek to the window, and watched, waving and weeping, until Howard had disappeared far into the distance.


End file.
